Monthly Archives: April 2014

I presented to my class a couple of copies of Kevin and the Triple Creature today. I had several students who were particularly asking me to be the first to read them when they would be ready. I learned to predetermine who would get the books first. I almost had a, let’s call it an “aggressive disagreement” between students, when I dropped off copies of Kevin and the Three-Headed Alien. Lesson learned.

You could get picky and say that phrase didn’t come from the above scene. You could.

(Aggressive disagreements are similar to aggressive negotiations that Jedi’s have. Just minus the lightsabers.)

How many other writers can say they had to stop an “aggressive disagreement” over being the first to read their books?

Today my two students brought their copies of the book with them to lunch. They read them while walking to lunch.

Those copies came from this box.

I wish you could experience that.

This is why teachers need to write books. I have so many teachers tell me they want to write a book. If you could experience this, you would be motivated finish that book. Students will be impressed that you wrote a book. They will be motivated to write like you. They will send you their books for you to review.

I caught Captain America last Friday on its opening day. Marvel has a thing going now. They have broken out of the linear prequel-sequel story lines, and now they have an entire universe to play-in. All of the other Avengers were mentioned in the movie, yet they didn’t appear. At the end of the credits we get a notice, a la James Bond, that Captain America will appear again in Avengers 2.

Cool poster. If you know who did this let me know so I can give proper credit.

But as writers without corporations or committees needing to be appealed too, writers, and indie writers in particular could really do well with this approach. The general wisdom on the street is to write in a series. Well, why limit ourselves to a linear series. Create a single world and write all about it. I have thought about it. I have three books about Kevin. Maybe I could spread the universe out a little and write about one of his friends, and have Kevin be a sideline character. I have no idea what I would do, but again this is a possibility.

Maybe we need to stop thinking linearly, and thinking about whole universes. After all, we create.